A story of survival visits San Antonio

1of3Eva Balcazar, 86, speaks during a showing of "An Unknown Country: The Jewish Exiles of Ecuador" held Saturday Jan. 14, 2017 at the Great Northwest Library. Balcazar, who was in Berlin during the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) in 1938, escaped with her family to Ecuador.Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

2of3Eva Balcazar, 86, speaks during a showing of "An Unknown Country: The Jewish Exiles of Ecuador" held Saturday Jan. 14, 2017 at the Great Northwest Library. Balcazar, who was in Berlin during the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) in 1938, escaped with her family to Ecuador.Photo: Edward A. Ornelas, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

3of3Eva Balcazar speaks during a screening of “An Unknown Coun- try: The Jewish Exiles of Ecua- dor” on Saturday at the Great Northwest Branch Library. Balcazar’s family escaped to Ecuador in November 1938.Photo: Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News

One of Eva Balcazar’s memories of childhood was going with her mother to one of Ecuador’s markets in the late 1930s to buy butter.

Rather than the more sanitary conditions they were used to in their native Germany, they encountered a market peddler sitting on the dirt floor, and she appeared to have not taken a bath in weeks. The woman grabbed a block of butter from the floor next to her, slapped it in a newspaper and handed it to Balcazar’s mother.

“My mother almost passed out,” Balcazar, 86, said, as she recounted the story Saturday at Great Northwest Branch Library during a screening of “An Unknown Country.”

The 90-minute documentary is part of the San Antonio Public Library’s series, The Holocaust: Learn & Remember, Refuge in the Americas, and drew a packed screening room at the library. The film is directed by Eva Zelig, whose family also fled Europe and resettled in Ecuador, and it uses first-hand accounts and archival material to tell the stories of the many Jews who fled Europe to escape persecution.

“It’s got a message of survival,” said Balcazar, who lived in Ecuador twice, including from 1939 to 1953, which encompasses some of the period covered by the film. “It was a strange land. It was like landing on the moon.”

Balcazar has lived in San Antonio for 27 years and makes a brief appearance in a photo in the film. Balcazar’s father, an industrial chemist, lost his job in Berlin when Hitler came into power, and chose to uproot the family following the Kristallnacht. Also known as the Night of Broken Glass, it refers to a period in November 1938 when a wave of attacks against Jews in Germany left shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed.

Rather than face captivity or death, many Jews began looking elsewhere as Nazi occupation increased.

Most Latin American nations were relatively open to immigrants from 1918 to 1933, according to some scholars. But as the search for refuge intensified after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, resistance to the acceptance of European Jews and other foreigners increased. Latin American governments allowed only about 84,000 Jewish refugees to immigrate between 1933 and 1945, less than half the number admitted during the previous 15 years.

The film touches on these socio-political struggles in Ecuador, whose consular diplomats in Europe granted visas on false pretenses — telling their governments back home that the Jewish immigrants relocating to Ecuador from Europe were going to work in agriculture.

Those who made it to Ecuador — the film notes 4,000 European Jews resettled in Ecuador at its peak in the 1940s — were met with cultural shock. Many came from more developed countries of Europe, but suddenly found themselves in Ecuador, a country in South America that was under-developed, lacked infrastructure, struggled with great socio-econimic divisions and relied heavily on its agricultural economy. Much of Ecuador had an indigenous population, who saw their new guests as “just another oppressor,” one of those interviewed in the film says.

Many of the Jewish refugees took up farming or livestock raising, struggling to eke out a living in a land that was so different from their native homes. Others turned to peddling goods, moved to cities or tried their hands at many things. While some were depressed for having to leave Europe, others embraced their new country and prospered. They contributed greatly to Ecuador’s industry, economy, education and the arts. The Jewish immigrants, for instance, introduced waterproof raincoats, dry-cleaning and paper bags to Ecuador, among other things, the film notes.

Balcazar lived in Ecuador until 1953 when she married a U.S. Army soldier and they moved to the United States, ultimately settling in San Antonio. She first saw the movie in New York, but pitches it to others, some of whom said after Saturday’s screening that it was an eye-opener.

“This is a message of hope,” Balcazar said. “It shows that no matter what they can do to us, no matter what they want to do to us, we can go ahead and persevere.”

For a schedule of more events, which run through Feb. 11, visit mysapl.org or learnandremember.org — organizers said.

Guillermo has been with the Express-News for 10 years, and has covered federal court and its investigative agencies for most of that time. He has also covered immigration, minority affairs and legal affairs as part of the projects team here and for other print, TV and radio outlets. Guillermo has also worked in Central America, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona and California and his work has appeared in various publications, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, New York Post, Newsday, Denver Post and the Albuquerque Journal.